certain Processes of the Human Understanding. 97 



subtle process which is for ever going on, the most constant as well as the most 

 powerful of the mental functions. In this, also, essentially different from all other 

 mental functions of which we have any distinct notion, that it is independent of 

 all volition and consciousness ; and if the illustration be allowed, that it bears to 

 the recognizable and conscious operations of the mind a relation analogous to that 

 which the digestive and assimilative processes bear to the voluntary powers of the 

 frame. 



There is no discoverable limit to the operation of the process here described, 

 though it only becomes distinctly cognizable as it comes within the province of 

 language. But before this condition is attained, and beyond the bounded compass 

 of language, there is an endless range of unfixed, local, and transitory combina- 

 tions of ideas ; some belonging to real existence, and some in their nature arbi- 

 trary and unreal : all, still, in some way connected with the ordinary operations 

 of the mind. Of this vast stock of ideal elements, the wrought and unwrought 

 materials of thought, there is a continuous transition in the progress of association : 

 some are connected no further than the first stage of mere suggestion — these are 

 the ordinary masses of our casual associations, and are, by the nature of things, un- 

 limited ; some have local relations, and are peculiar to times, places, individuals, 

 and professions — these may acquire the form oi combination in individual minds ; 

 others, lastly, from their uniform juxta-position in reality, acquire a permanent 

 unity, and the indissoluble stamp of a name. These last alone are universally re- 

 cognized in their real character; while the unlimited multitude of casual and transi- 

 tory associations, appearing in the various stages of the common process, from 

 the remotest suggestion to the most constant identification of an inseparable 

 unity, thus afford a seemingly wide scope for metaphysical discriminations and 

 classifications — while the process throughout is uniform. In following out this 

 varied succession of changes, there would be, however, the utmost complication, 

 as at every point the process becomes variously subjected to the active operations 

 of the understanding, which derives from it the entire stock of its ideas. I shall 

 now, therefore, aim to be compendious, and for this purpose select an example 

 which involves the utmost difficulties to which this inquiry is liable. 



The intellectual habits of the public speaker have been explained by Mr. 

 Stewart, according to the theory which I have been endeavouring to supersede. 

 Lord Brougham has described them with the accuracy of a philosopher, and the 



VOL. XIX. ^ 



